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Let's downsize: Make Devens our capital

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
11/07/2012 11:57:13 AM EST

Run down the 1994 list of plans for the former Fort Devens and you'll see plenty of checkmarks. The proposed federal prison is running, and manufacturing is alive and well with a mix of businesses. The Francis W. Parker Charter School regularly scores highly on MCAS. Under the Devens Enterprise Commission, the Devens Common area has grown with shops, a restaurant and hotel.

Yet Devens' next step is unclear, muddied even further by a decade of dithering. Some Ayer officials have pushed repeatedly for the town to take back land in the pre-fort boundaries, which has fizzled. Attempts to add housing developments have failed twice, notably the Vicksburg Square plan trounced earlier this year. Mostly, Devens is open and sparsely traveled, the kind of place where you teach your child how to drive without hitting anything.

The Legislature will decide in 2033 whether to create a town or take back the land. The ongoing gridlock appears to make further growth unlikely in the future, so the state should develop a bold, out-of-the-box mission: Move the capital to Devens.

Good reasons are plenty:

* Boston's major power brokers will have less influence on the Legislature.

* State government will be housed at a single campus rather than in a hodgepodge of buildings across Boston.

* Route 2 provides easy access.

* A central location will be fairer to communities that believe they're afterthoughts on Beacon Hill.

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* A new capital will spur growth and modest development.

Boston is the capital only because Massachusetts matured that way, starting as a seaport and gradually expanding north, south and west. It made sense in 1700 to mass the Bay Colony's government where people lived, and to mass public-safety along a vulnerable waterfront. Only one-third of states have their largest city doubling as their capital.

The cost of such a move is unknown, and could be reduced by selling its pricey Boston real estate. It's an idea worth exploring, and worth the support of lawmakers across the Nashoba and Merrimack valleys.

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